Some weeks ago, the Bangladesh government carried out the execution of the convicted war criminal, Mir Quasem Ali. He was the sixth war criminal to be hanged. Five of those executed earlier belonged to the pro-Pakistani Islamist organisation, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. Ali was third in command of the infamous Al-Badr militia force, raised by Pakistan's government from local collaborators who unleashed horrendous atrocities on their fellow Bengalis, both Muslim and Hindu, on behalf of Pakistan's army during Bangladesh's nine-month War of Liberation in 1971. The Hindus bore the brunt of their atrocities because Islamic Pakistan had a hatred for the Hindus, and the dictatorship of General Yahya Khan branded the rebellion in East Pakistan as a conspiracy by "Hindu" India.
Ali was found guilty by the war crimes tribunal of torturing and killing freedom fighters, as commander of the Al-Badr in the Chittagong area of Bangladesh. He went on to become a business tycoon and chief financier of Jamaat, after rehabilitation of its collaborators by the dictator, General Ziaur Rahman, who seized power soon after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Ali became the head of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the new student wing of Jamaat in independent Bangladesh. A son of a junior railways employee, he was a shrewd financial operator and rose to become a key player in the Jamaat hierarchy by virtue of his contribution to the financial empire of Jamaat. He was an executive council member of Jamaat, director of the Islami Bank, chairman of Diganta Media Corporation, a founder of Ibn Sina Trust and director of the Saudi-promoted-and-funded NGO, Rabita al-Alam al-Islami. Invoking religion, Ali's wife said, "My husband is going to die for Islam; those who are executing him will not win."
Many Bangladeshis celebrated on the streets of Dhaka when news of the execution became public. Predictably, Jamaat had proclaimed that all charges against Ali were baseless and called for a half-day hartal in protest. Jamaat alleged that Ali had been "hanged unjustifiably as part of the government's conspiracy to make Jamaat-e-Islami a leaderless party." Ali's family and Jamaat alleged that security forces had abducted his son, a member of his legal defence team, last month. The security forces denied these allegations.
Ali was the head of Jamaat's student wing, the Islami Chhatra Sangha's Chittagong wing when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan. He remained in this position during the War of Liberation, letting loose a reign of terror on the freedom fighters of the War of Liberation and the local population. He belonged to that section of citizens of East Pakistan that opposed the breakup of Pakistan, in spite of the humiliation heaped on the Bengalis by the racist and arrogant rulers based in Islamabad, who considered the Bengali Muslims as inferior and not Muslim enough. Pakistan's ruling establishment, primarily Punjabi Muslims, still suffer from the delusion that they are the descendants of the Mughals and the day will come when they will recapture power in Delhi and fly the flag of Islam from the ramparts of the Red Fort. This is the delusional mentality that drives their hatred for "Hindu" India, breeding an institutional hostility towards the country that shows no signs of abating to this day.
Bangladesh was born in an orgy of bloodshed, caused by Pakistan's genocidal army and its local collaborators. Even after forty five years of independence, Bangladesh continues to grapple with a sordid chapter in its War of Liberation. Despite the bravery of the Mukti Bahini, ably supported by the Indian army and other sections of the Indian government, the fight for liberation from Pakistan's overlords was not just fought on the ground but also in the hearts and minds of the people. It is beyond doubt that genocide was committed in Bangladesh and the perpetrators who are still alive must be brought to justice, to give solace to those who still live with the wounds of the atrocities and to the families of those who perished in the hands of the collaborators, who were sons and daughters of the soil, including Muslims from Bihar. The fight to keep Pakistan united was seen as an "Islamic" and a conspiracy hatched by the Hindus, which appealed to a certain kind of bigoted mindset. It did not work. Remnants of this mindset remain embedded even in independent Bangladesh and are routinely exploited for political gains by parties like the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami. Leaders from the ranks of these parties fan anti-Indian feelings to this day, based on perceived grievances. They are Bangladeshi nationals and citizens, but their mindset is somewhat akin to their coreligionists in Pakistan.
Pakistan's military rulers at that time were arrogant, short sighted and stupid. They could have kept Pakistan united. All they had to do was do a deal with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose party had won a majority in the National Assembly in the 1970 elections. The army and West Pakistan's ruling establishment, ably egged on by the machinations of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, ensured that a political compromise could not be reached. While Mujib was willing for a political compromise, his demand for autonomy for East Pakistan was unpalatable to West Pakistan's inflexible ruling establishment. Any concessions to autonomy were seen as undermining the economic hegemony of West Pakistan, whose population was less than that of East Pakistan but grabbed the majority share of national resources. Mujib knew that there would be no compromise and was ready to demand independence. The rest, as it is said, is history.
The Bengali collaborators of Pakistan's rulers were motivated by Islamism and their hatred of India. Their commitment was to the so-called ideology of Pakistan. The creation of Bangladesh buried forever the insidious 'two-nation theory,' together with the hope that Islam can be the glue for nationhood. Even now, Pakistan is struggling with its Pashtun and Baloch insurgencies and with unrest in Pak-occupied Kashmir, particularly Gilgit-Baltistan. Pakistan's army continues to commit atrocities against those who refuse to accept Punjabi domination. In Balochistan, a 69-year-old freedom struggle continues and the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan from Pakistan yearn to join an independent Pashtunistan or Afghanistan. It is for this reason that, to this day, no Afghan government, not even the one run by the Taliban, has recognised the Durand Line as the formal border.
There are no prizes for guessing which two countries came out strongly against the execution. Pakistan has consistently criticised the war crimes trials, calling them flawed and an exercise in eliminating the political opposition. It also said that it was deeply saddened by the execution and reminded Bangladesh that these trials where a breach of the 1974 tripartite agreement between Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Pakistan's interpretation of this agreement asserts that it was decided not to proceed with such trials as an act of clemency. In words brimming with irony, Pakistan advised Bangladesh, "Recriminations for political gains are counter-productive. Pakistan believes that matters should be addressed with a forward looking approach in the noble spirit of reconciliation."
Turkey, an ally of Pakistan during the Cold War years and currently under the Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also reacted, though a little more mildly. In a statement, the Turkish foreign ministry said, "We've learned with sorrow that the death sentence issued by the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh against Mir Quasem Ali has been executed in Bangladesh." Turkey insisted that the "wounds of the past cannot be healed with these methods and hope that this wrong practice will not lead to separation among the brotherly people of Bangladesh." These lines could have been written by Pakistan's foreign office.
Turkey's pro-Pakistan leanings have deepened under Erdogan, who has been often accused of harbouring delusions of grandeur in reviving Turkey's influence akin to the era when Turkish Sultan was head of the caliphate. Turkey is going through a rough patch and Erdogan has narrowly survived an attempted coup recently. An internal purge has devastated Turkey's major institutions. It is also scrambling to deal with the Kurdish issue, which is inextricable linked from the civil war in Syria. Turkey remains the primary culprit in precipitating the civil war in Syria and promoting the ISIS in its attempt to oust the regime of the president, Bashar Al-Assad, in Syria.
Another round of recriminations and diplomatic protests, which followed these provocative statements, has ensured that Bangladesh-Pakistan and Bangladesh-Turkey relations have hit rock bottom. Bangladesh has accused Pakistan of interfering in its internal affairs and has acknowledged Pakistan's "direct involvement and complicity" in the mass crimes committed during the War of Liberation. Dhaka also accuses Pakistan of continuing to present "a misleading, limited and partial interpretation" of the underlying premise of the tripartite agreement of April 1974. "The essential spirit of the Agreement was to create an environment of good neighbourliness" and the agreement "never implied that the masterminds and perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide would continue to enjoy impunity and eschew the course of justice," Dhaka said in a protest note. "Rather Pakistan has systematically failed in its obligation to bring to justice those of its nationals identified and held responsible for committing mass atrocity crimes in 1971," the protest note further asserted.
Protests at Shahbag, Dhaka, 5 February 2013 | Photo: Mehdi Hasan Khan/CC BY-SA 3.0Bangladesh also recorded its protest against Turkey's statement over the execution conveying that such reactions are tantamount to interference in matters pertaining to a sovereign State. Dhaka's protest note to the Turkish embassy conveyed Bangladesh's dismay at the Turkish government's statement and said, "This also doesn't help foster bilateral relations that exist between the two brotherly countries."
The war crimes trials that began in 2010 have been criticised by Jamaat and its international Islamist sympathisers for being a concerted attempt to target the political opponents of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and her party, the Awami League. The global Islamist network, of which Jamaat is a part, has lobbied prominent human rights organisations, lawyers and politicians to criticise the trials as flawed and not meeting international standards. Wajed has been steadfast in her decision and rejected all allegations and pressure, seen to it that that war criminals are punished for their crimes. She has received the unstinted support of the people of Bangladesh in this endeavour. There is little doubt that India's support has also been helpful in warding off international pressure on Wajed's government.
The War of Liberation was based on a secular ethos and after the assassination of Mujib in 1975, there was a concerted assault on that ethos by those who seized power. There were leaders who harked back to the Lahore Resolution on the establishment of Muslim States after the British left India, and justified that Bangladesh must be Islamic in its ethos. Other leaders, encouraged by Ziaur Rahman, who donned the mantle of a freedom fighter and was allegedly complicit in the assassination of Mujib, pushed for the concept of Bangladeshi nationalism. This was another way of promoting an Islamic identity as the basis for nationalism.
To further this, General Rahman permitted leaders of the collaborators from Jamaat to return to Bangladesh. Most of them had fled Bangladesh after independence knowing that their crimes would not be forgiven and they would have pay with their lives. General Rahman forgave and rehabilitated them in his pursuit of political power. Jamaat, led by these collaborators, became the coalition partner of the BNP, the political party founded by General Rahman. Another dictator, General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, went on to amend the Constitution and made Islam the State religion. The dangerous interplay of religion and politics, introduced by military dictators, subverted the secular ethos of the War of Liberation that is trying to make a comeback under Wajed's government.
This commentary originally appeared in The Telegraph.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Pinak Chakravarty is a Visiting Fellow with ORF's Regional Studies Initiative where he oversees the West Asia Initiative Bangladesh and selected ASEAN-related issues. He joined ...
Read More +
PREV
